Category: raising chickens

The garden’s last gasp

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, gardening, raising chickens

So I went out to see what was left in the garden, and was surprised to find that there actually was something left. A

October garden harvest

handful of cherry tomatoes, a japanese eggplant, and the sole orange bell pepper that was produced by that plant. There is also some basil, beets, carrots…lettuce and spinach coming up that was replanted last month. There are a few apples, but they have black marks on them, souvenirs from the hail. They taste great, but their eye appeal is zilch.

What else? Oh, yes…3 raspberries! There is also a cherry tomato vine that is kicking butt, covered with green tomatoes that showed up as a volunteer in the raspberry bed, a covert stowaway in the compost, I presume. I don’t think the tomatoes will ripen before the frost, but who knows? They won’t go to waste anyway. Chickens love tomatoes as much as they love pumpkins!

The herb garden is going strong still: a few different oreganos, probably a half a dozen varieties of thyme, rosemary, bay, lavender, lemon verbena, the sages. Will be bringing the rosemary and bay plants inside to (hopefully) live through the winter.

Even though the “pickin’s is slim”, there is still a lot to do in the garden, like: getting it ready for winter. How to do this? Not sure! Have to check with my husband…has something to do with compost, I think. And getting dirty. 🙂

Pumpkins in the Old Port

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, local fun, raising chickens

Love pumpkins? There are lots of options for getting your pumpkin fix here in the Old Port. 

First, Coastal Maine Popcorn Company has a seasonal flavor called Pumpkin Spice. Now, popcorn is not something that immediately springs to mind (like muffins!) when I think of pumpkin, but maybe hereafter it will. Head over to the tasting bar and try some for yourself; see what you think. I’d tell you what I think of it except that the day I went to try it, they were sold out of it. Maybe that means that it’s good? 

Pumpkin Pie from Bam Bam Bakery

Next, you can indulge your pumpkin and your chocolate cravings at once with some pumpkin chocolate swirl fudge from the Old Port Candy Company. They will give you a free sample if you want to “try before you buy”. Fair warning: it will be hard to walk away without it once you’ve tried it. 

At The Farmers Market in Monument Square on Wednesdays, you can pick up a personal-sized, gluten-free pumpkin pie from Bam Bam Bakery’s table. Be focused though, because they also have lemon bars to die for. Get your little pie, hand over your $5, then walk away. 

Pumpkin Whoopie from Two Fat Cats Bakery

Finally, there are amazing pumpkin whoopie pies made at the Two Fat Cats Bakery on India Street.  Their recipe is in the Making Whoopies: The Official Whoopie Pie Book by Nancy Griffin. They were featured recently on America’s Best Sweets on the Food Network and touted as having the best whoopie pie not only in Portland, but in America. I have had the pumpkin version and I totally agree. 

On another note: don’t forget about how much chickens love to eat real pumpkins, and feel free to save any post-Halloween for consumption by the local chickens of your choice. Especially mine. 

🙂

(Chicken) Food for Thought

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, raising chickens
The flock

 

To all my gardener friends and friends of friends local to Wells: 

Want to do a good deed for your feathered fowl friends? Give us your tired, wretched masses…of produce!
Reasons to bring your inedible, unappetizing, or otherwise unappealing garden food items to my house:
  1. Drive by and drop off! You don’t even have to get out of your car; just lean out and place your unwanted items on the bottom shelf of the egg stand at the bottom of the driveway.
  2. You will feel good because you will be supporting a local farm.
  3. Chickens LOVE most produce.
What to bring?
  1. Unwanted post-halloween pumpkins
  2. Baseball bat sized zucchinis or cukes
  3. Apples and tomatoes (of any color and ripeness) that fell to the ground before you got to pick them
  4. The tired looking, wilty lettuce from the bottom of the crisper that you forgot about
  5. Banged up produce of any kind that you are too nervous to eat..

The chickens say thank you for any and all efforts! 

New Arrivals

by Karen, posted in raising chickens

The new peeps were born last Wednesday and scheduled to arrive on Thursday, Friday the latest, through the mail. We did order from a new vendor, one we hadn’t ordered from in the past. We chose them this time because they allowed us

New arrivals

to buy 20 at a time instead of 25. They were cheap; like, half the price of the other vendors. It was also closer; they would ship from Pennsylvania, not Iowa or Texas. This had to be easier on peeps-in-transit, we reasoned.

So, as we’ve done at least a half a dozen times before, we placed our order, confident that they would arrive as scheduled. So confident, that when they did not come on Thursday, my husband went to the post office on Friday morning to get the package.

When they said they didn’t have a package for us, he listened carefully for the tell-tale “peep peep peep”, but heard nothing.

This was not good. Little peeps theoretically can live for up to 72 hours (key words here are “up to”), but they certainly also might not.

On Saturday, at 6:39am, the call came. The chicks had arrived! The news was promising: the package was “peeping”. I went to pick it up, dreading what we might find when we opened it. Both kids and I held our breath…

Well, the good news was this: all 21 chicks were living and peeping. All took a drink when coaxed. All found the food.

The bad news is this: with in 2 days, we had 6 dead bodies.  We’d never lost more than 1 0r 2 chicks right away like that. It was kind of awful. Every time one of us went out to check on them, there would be another little casualty. 😦

There are 15 chicks left, and all seem to be doing well. Hopefully the worst is past.

Needless to say, we will likely not be ordering from them again.

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Sad day for tomatoes

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, education, family, gardening, raising chickens
rescued tomatoes

Well, I have some distressing news today: they have come. The dreaded tomato horned worm has invaded my tomato garden. In all of the years that I’ve been growing tomatoes, this is a (terrible) first. I guess it’s true: if you plant it, they will come. 

It’s especially depressing because (for once!) this has such a promising year for tomatoes so far! They are plentiful, robust plants this year, which almost never happens. 

So, the time has come for me to admit the truth: I am a wimpy gardener. I hate picking the pests off of the plants leaves and fruits; it makes my skin crawl. Of course, that is the first line of defense against so many pests: remove and squish them. 

But I can’t really complain. I am fortunate. I am married to man who loves me more than he hates tomato pests. He is the one who hand-picked all of those repulsive, large, green wormy caterpillary horned creatures from my tomato plants and then fed them to the chickens (circle of life, baby; circle of life). 

Why not just turn the chickens loose on the tomato beds? Because chickens love eating tomatoes as much as the tomato hornworms love eating tomatoes, so there is a basic conflict of interest there. 

If you want to see what these disgusting creatures look like, click here, then scroll down for the pictures on the left side of the text. 

Of course, there are various and sundry poisons to use for most pests, but doesn’t it give you pause when you think about eating the food that has potentially internalized the poison that you are hoping kills some living thing? 

So, what do you do? Pick, squish, then hope for the best? or do you follow that with a good dousing with the poison of your choice?

How it feels to be attacked by a rooster

by Karen, posted in health, raising chickens
The rooster

 

Ever wonder how it actually feels to be the target of a rooster? I didn’t give it much thought, actually, until it happened to me. 

So, what’s it like? 

  1. Well, the first thing was, I was surprised! I had no warning that the big guy was about to come at me. I was just collecting the eggs at the end of the day, when I hear a squawk and felt something pierce my leg. This leads us to the next feeling:
  2. Pain! I felt searing pain in my calf at the site of the pecking. It felt like my calf was on fire. I had heard in the past that if a rooster is coming at you, you should advance toward him. So, with a “never let ’em see you sweat” bravado, I advanced. Unfortunately, so did the rooster (please note: rooster’s bravado was not false). Score another peck for the rooster.
  3. Next, anger starts to creep in. At this point, I didn’t know how badly I was hurt. I was trying hard to hold it together so that my daughter, who was on the other side of the (closed) coop door yelling, “Mom! Mom! Are you all right??”, would not freak out. But hey, this rooster was big! and was not backing off! I decided that a well-timed scream of “Get away from me!!”  at the offender was in order at this point, as I made for the door and managed to get out without him following me. This time I exhibited some well delivered, effective bravado for the purpose of relieving my daughter of her fear about my well-being.
  4. Finally, time for my fear. How bad were the wounds? Puncture wounds from farm animals seemed to me to be a likely source of virulent infection. I reasoned that since it was my own farm animal, however, I had less to worry about than I might have had it been a wandering, vagabond rooster  (I also began to second guess my artless, not quite factual affirmation of a tetanus booster “within the last 5 years” to the ER nurse last month where I went to have a foreign object removed from my eye). Well, it actually didn’t look too bad, thank goodness, which led to the final emotion:
  5. Relief. No ER trips today; home treatment is all that is needed.  After a good old-fashioned washing with soap and water, ice and arnica would do the trick.  Three days of observation for symptoms of infection were also indicated, which I did, and there were (fortunately) none.

For future reference, here is some advice about how to protect yourself from a rooster attack.

Any other tales of rooster woe out there?

At long last, a cupola

by Karen, posted in family, italian, raising chickens

My husband has been wanting a cupola for years. He even pointed out that cupola is an ITALIAN, hoping to persuade me that we need one, since I am enamoured with all things Italian. (Please note: man in the picture is the installer, not the husband).

And of course, what is a cupola without a weathervane? I ask you.

So we started looking at weathervanes online for just the right one.

We narrowed it down to two: a  hen with chicks, or a llama. First, I was leaning towards the hen. After all, we raise chickens currently, not llamas (although that is an option in the future).

Llamas, however, traditionally have functioned as guard animals for chickens, and my husband and son liked the idea of having a llama (figuratively, if not yet literally) keeping watch over our flock. Once they put it that way, so did I! So, the decision has been left up to me and I can’t decide.

Vote for which weathervane you would choose for the cupola!

Spring!

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, raising chickens

Gold Laced Wyandotte Bantam, 4 months old

So, there are still a few days left of spring, the time when a young man’s fancy lightly turns to… chicks! You know, the kind that come from hens (we’re talking flock expansion here).

We have been anxiously awaiting the call from Longhorn since last week’s false alarm, when the anticipated arrival date (June 11th) came and went with no new babies! The due date was revised; the new date set was June 16th.

The new date came, and this time the chicks have indeed arrived! We got the call at 9:04AM. My husband headed over with his wish list of preferred types of chicks to add to our flock.

Decisions have been made after much research online, in books, in conversation with other people (who either currently raise chickens or did at one time)…now he will try to match up our list with what they actually are offering. Room is always left to add an interesting surprise or two; following your gut instinct is important in chick-choosing.

Today the gut points to a Bantam chick that my husband describes as “interesting”. Bantams are roughly half (or less) the size of “regular” sized chickens, which can be a boon for you if you are raising chickens in a small space. Of course, their eggs are smaller (and cuter!) too, but hey, sometimes you only need a little egg for your cooking project (like when you are breading cutlets, or making an egg wash for a pie or stromboli). It can be a bigger risk  that you may end up with a boy instead of girl when you choose a bantam, but some of the Bantams are just so “interesting” that it’s a chance you willingly take. Well, we take the chance more often than not.

The new chicks are now happily ensconced in their own little coop, where they will stay until they are ready for assimilation into the main coop.

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Spring thaw!

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, health, raising chickens

This is a great time for a “see what’s in  your freezer” week. Start now. It’s the kind of thing you may never get to if you don’t, or if you think about it too much.

  • Sunday: breads, english muffins, bagels….all those packages of  “there’s-only-one -or-two-left-but-it’s-close-to -the-expiration-date-so-i’ll-stick ’em-in-the-freezer-before-they-go-bad”‘s. Find them all. Be ruthless. Either make some french toast, bread pudding, or feed it to the chickens (or fill in the blank with your housepet/garbage disposal of choice). Here’s what I found: 3 half loaves of bread, 2 cranberry thomas’ english muffins, 2 whole wheat english muffins, half a loaf of pumpkin whole wheat bread…half of above were freezer burned (read: tastes gross).
  • Monday: frozen bagged vegetables. Mixed green and red bell pepper strips (became Chicken Stir Fry). Broccoli,  2 packages (one of which became Chicken, Broccoli, and Rotini). Peas. Corn. Also used package of frozen chicken leftover from a rotisserie chicken for the chicken, broccoli, and rotini recipe, and pasta from the pantry! nothing to buy.
  • Tuesday: chili
  • Wednesday: homemade Italian Sausage, Potato, and White Bean Soup.
  • Thursday: homemade chicken and rice soup. became my supper for work that night.
  • Friday: all sorts of frozen berries, frozen bananas, ice cream…made some smoothies
  • Saturday: Some small, unidentified chunks of frozen meat (maybe beef or port); will get thrown into the spaghetti sauce to make a big “sunday gravy”

This is just one week of discoveries. I have much more space in my freezer now, and am resisting the urge to fill it back up. Shopping at local farm stands for perishables rather than the supermarket is helping.

How do you keep the clutter down in your freezer/fridge/pantry?

eggs!

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, raising chickens
our multicolored eggs

speaking of egg color driving our hen choices every year (see prior post ), here is a sampling of some of what our flock puts forth every day.  the blue and green eggs come from ameraucana chickens. marans, barnvelders,  and welsummers lay the chocolate brown eggs. . . and the white leghorn hens lay large, perfect, white, hard-shelled eggs.

when we collect the eggs, we never really know for sure what we will get from day-to-day. some hens lay quite frequently, some not so much. we also never know for sure where we will find them. although they have beautifully outfitted nest boxes, some hens just take a liking to a particular spot and will lay their eggs there, nest box or not. then it’s a challenge to avoid “walking on eggshells” when we go to throw them some treats or collect the days eggs.

one likes to lay her eggs on the ground to the right of the stairs that lead out to the run. another deposits hers out in the run.  if we find an egg in the same spot a few times, my husband will place a nest box there for that hen, although there is no guarantee that she will take advantage of it.

the eggs also vary in size; sometimes (when hens are first starting to lay) the egg is as small as a marble! sometimes they are as large as a tennis ball, and we have found eggs of every size in between.  shape varies from perfectly round to oval to oblong. sometimes they are asymmetrical. they are never boring.